22. Chapter 22
Rox
The irony isn’t lost on me.
Being bound to a chair, my hands tied behind my back as I look over at the two men who would do harm to me? Yeah, I feel like maybe this was the universe’s way of telling me I took it too far with Belle, but fuck it, she needed to learn a lesson, and apparently so did I.
Johnny had changed.
He wasn’t the boy I dated in school anymore. Hell, I barely recognised him when he walked in my house. The fact he was a Bloody Scorpion just made it so much worse. But the way his eyes roamed over me, it was sickening.
He’d always been wrong in that way. Always perving, always looking a little too long. I hadn’t noticed it back then. I’d been his girlfriend, you expected that kind of attention but the pressure to fuck when you were only fifteen was a bit much.
It was because of him that I was in detention that day.
I guess I should thank him, thank him for putting me in Myth’s orbit. There’d been no way I wasn’t being swept up in Myth after that.
The second his eyes had landed on me and that killer smirk had lifted, I was done for.
“All right, princess,” Calypso’s sickening voice was in my ear as he knelt beside me. “You’re going to be a good girl, aren’t you? We just need a couple of photos to send to your husband.”
“Fuck you,” I said through gritted teeth, before I hocked a spitball right in his eye.
He sat back on his feet and chuckled, before he wiped it away. Sick fuck.
“Oh I like your spirit,” he said, before he leaned closer. “I can’t wait to break you.”
Pushing up off the floor, he ran his hand through my hair. I pulled back, almost pulling a muscle, before he slipped out of the room. Notch was in the corner of the room, just watching.
“Sorry you couldn’t get your rocks off, Johnny.”
“You didn’t have to come back, you know.”
“What?”
“Weren’t you happy in London? That’s where they said you went after The Den.”
Nausea swept through me. That was a part of my life not many knew about unless you were there. I’d never told Beck, for fear he would cut me loose, and I hadn’t dared tell Myth.
“I was there…I saw you all drugged out and in bliss.”
“You saw me there and did nothing?”
“You looked happy, and you were away from the asshole who took you off me.”
“He didn’t take me off you. I left you of my own free will.”
“And he cheated on you.”
“He didn—”
I stopped myself. He did cheat, or well, he had his dick sucked by my best friend, even though he claimed he didn’t.
I mean, plenty of the boys did that on their wives.
Some were loyal, but there was only so much temptation they could resist. I knew a few of them only got blowjobs, and left the fucking to their wives.
It was a rule that whatever happened in the clubhouse, stayed there. Stacey knew better.
And she paid the ultimate price.
But…so did I.
“Why am I here, Johnny?”
“Collateral. We want the Royal Bastards to leave Sydney.”
The laugh left my throat before I could stop it. How did he think that was going to happen?
“Are you serious?”
“What?”
Johnny stepped closer, the malice on his face was clear now.
“Johnny…just because you took the prez’s wife, doesn’t mean shit. We all know the danger of being with a Royal Bastard. We still choose them. That’s not something you’ve ever had happen to you, is it? No one’s ever chosen you.”
His left eye twitched slightly as his jaw tightened.
“I mean, I certainly didn’t choose you. The second I saw Adrian, I knew he was it.”
“Yet you left him.”
“Because I don’t share.”
And I didn’t. That was why it hurt so much to see. I’d stopped coming to the clubhouse because I didn’t want to see it. I wanted him to be all mine, but I couldn’t have that, not with a MC prez.
“Imagine how many pussies he’s been in all those years since you've been gone.”
“You jealous?” I spat back. “You want to call him here and bend over so you know what it’s like to be with a real man?”
I could barely move when he closed the distance between us, his hand whipping out and slapping me across the face. The burn was immediate, one side of my face was on fire, but it confirmed something for me.
He was easy to rile up.
That would be his undoing.
“You’re going to hate what Calypso does to you.”
He lifted my top up, revealing my tattoo. He sneered at it, like it offended him.
“Will it be as bad as what you did to me in school?”
He had the grace to look scared. I’d never told anyone about what he’d done, but my behaviour afterwards had earned me detention every Tuesday and Thursday after school for six months.
In those six months, I had fallen so head over heels for Adrian that I knew I was changed.
He wanted me to embrace the darkness in my soul, he wanted me for me.
I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t for him.
“Worse,” he replied, coldly. “I didn’t do shit to you in school.”
“Oh no?” I questioned. “Forcing your pinprick dick in my mouth was nothing?”
“Your lucky I didn’t open your legs and fuck you with my cock, you stupid bitch.”
I scoffed. “Probably wouldn’t have felt it.”
Slap!
Again, my face burned from the impact. Tears pricked my eyes from the pain, but I held back the sob I could feel forming in my chest.
“I was going to make him take it easy on you, but now…you’re fair game.”
I chuckled. “Make him…aren’t you the president, Johnny? Do you really not have control over your own men?”
Johnny stormed out of the room, slamming the door in his wake. I held back to my laugh, because now, I knew I was in trouble. I could hear the evilness in Calypso’s voice when he had hold of me in the house. He didn’t play around.
And my hands were bound tight.
Whatever he had planned for me, I was going to have to let it happen. Get him at his weakest and attack.
It was my only way back to Myth.
Myth
I reloaded my gun for what felt like the hundredth time, while I waited for word from Frenzy. We’d already gone to all the warehouses they had recently bought up, but they’d all been empty.
It had been a wild goose chase.
They’d planned for this.
They’d wanted me rattled.
“Tell me you have something,” I said through gritted teeth. Frenzy looked up from his computer. It had been two days since she had been gone. He hadn’t slept, and he’d even called in reinforcements of his old hacker buddies to get some answers, and still nothing.
“I’m close, I can see a trail, and I’m following it, but they’re good.”
Fuck.
I swept my hand over my face out of frustration and stood up. “Call me if you find anything.”
Frenzy nodded and I left Chapel. I felt like I had somewhere to be, but nowhere to go. That didn’t even make sense but I was restless and I needed to hurt someone. I needed her back here, safe, with me.
It was agony knowing who had her, and what they could do to her.
Fang was talking with Menace and Destroyer outside the clubhouse, their expressions grim. They knew how serious this was.
“Cowboy’s out walking,” Ink told me as he got up off the chair on the porch. “He’s never not found what he’s been looking for.”
“Camo used to say that and look what happened to him,” I added. “I don’t want to bury any more of my people.”
“What then?”
“We find them, and we burn them to the ground,” I declared.
Ink nodded. “You got it, Prez. I’ll help Frenzy.”
He headed inside, just as Fang appeared at my side. Menace and Destroyer had hopped on their bikes and were heading out.
“They’ve gone to help Cowboy.”
“Good.”
“Tell me what you need, Prez.”
“I need my wife.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t possibly know what this feels like, Fang. You don’t stay with a woman long enough to feel for them the way I feel for her. You close yourself off because you’re scared this is going to happen.”
“Am I wrong? You’re not acting like our Prez right now. You’re acting like a grieving husband.”
“Don’t lecture me.”
“You are our president. Tell us what to do. Give us orders. You fought to be the fearless Myth, the one people talk about with legend. So be that guy so you can get her back.”
He shoved past me and into the clubhouse. He wasn’t wrong. I was acting like a grieving asshole, but I was right about him not opening himself up to be hurt. He had no idea what it took for me to know she’s with my enemy, because of me, because I wouldn’t let her return to London.
If she died…fuck…I don’t know how I’d go on living. I lost her once and that was hard enough, I could keep an eye on her, but if I lost her to my enemy. There wasn’t a damn person in this world who could hold back the fury I would unleash on anyone who got in my way.
“Prez,” I heard Frenzy call from the door behind me. I spun around, and followed him inside, my feet carrying me faster than my brain could process. “You may not want to see this…but I have something.”
“Fucking put it up on the screen.”
I stood over the table, watching as Frenzy connected the screen to the wall. There in 4K, I saw my wife.
Beaten. Bloody. And hung up from chains coming from the ceiling of a cold, dark room.
Her tattoo was on display, making the pain of seeing her like this even heavier.
I sank into the closest chair, unable to look at the image of her anymore.
It was a video link, and she was moving slightly to shift the chains.
“Where is she?” I asked, my voice level and calm, although inside I was screaming.
“I haven’t found that ye—-”
I threw the mug that was sitting on the table across the room. It smashed into a million pieces. No one spoke a word.
“Frenzy…”
“We’re not stopping now. This wasn’t easy to find, which means they didn’t want us to find it right away. We will find her.”
Fang grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me out of the Chapel. I was about to round on him when I saw how angry he was.
“That fuckin’ kid hasn’t slept for days, Adrian. He’s worked his ass off to find your woman and you throw a goddamn mug at him?”
“I threw it at the wall,” I corrected him, but I knew he was right. I was so pent up with rage, and I had no one around here to take it out on.
“Go for a ride.”
“Did you see her?” I asked him, my voice cracking. My voice didn’t crack. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. But it was cracking right now. “They’ve fucked with my wife, they hurt her. You think I should just sit around and do nothing?”
“I know…it hurt me too. She’s like a sister to me, Myth. But I know we will find her. They will fuck up and we’ll find her. In order to do that, you need a clear fucking head, brother.”
“What if it were Missy?”
I knew it was a low call to bring her into this, but I knew how he felt about her. I knew how she felt about him. It was inevitable the two of them would get together, but both were too scared to face up to each other.
“What about her?”
Hurt registered across his face. He was imagining it was Missy, and I could see the way his fists clenched at his sides.
“Now, imagine I tell you to relax and calm down.”
“You’re out of line, Prez.”
“Am I?”
Fang headed inside, and immediately I felt the guilt shower over me. He was my oldest friend. The one who went through it all with me and Rox, and the one who kept me standing after she left.
I needed to fix this.
But I needed Rox more.
“Come on,” I heard my tail gunner, Gears, say from behind me. “I know where they are.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say I got a tip, from a very reliable source.”
“Gears, I swear if you don’t give me an answer that I’ll accept in the next five seconds, you’re going to be six feet under in the next two minutes.”
He stopped, and turned to face me. “I know someone behind enemy lines. He’s undercover.”
“A cop?”
Gears shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah. He works undercover for vice usually, but he got the assignment for the Bloody Scorpions. I only found out just now when he told me where to go.”
“How did he know to go to you?”
Gears sighed. “The tattoo on her. He’s trying to help her but he can’t give himself away.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I know, and if we need to have a chat later, we will. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, but right now, we need to get your wife out.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m not a rat, Prez. He’s my sister’s boyfriend.”
“The sister you’re in love with?”
Gears shot his head toward me. “It’s not weird. We’re not related. She’s my step-sister.”
I held my hands up. “Never said it was. Is this going to be a problem for you?”
“No.”
I had no choice. I had to trust him. Jumping on my bike, I got my helmet on just as he told me the address we were going to. I knew the place.
Right under our fucking noses the whole time.
I rode out with Gears at my side, my only thought on my wife and her safety. I should have alerted the others, but I couldn’t wait for them. The sound of engines behind us told me they had noticed our absence.
I should have known better.
They always would have my back.
Once we pulled up a street away from the old Bloody Scorpions’ clubhouse, I grabbed my weapon and made sure it was loaded. The boys all jumped into action behind me, no words necessary.
As we approached the clubhouse, I could see the lawn was overgrown, as if no one had been here for a while. That’s why we hadn’t bothered to check here.
Fucking idiot.
I was about to turn and tell the boys to call Destroyer and Menace when I heard a scream come from inside the house.
Not just any scream.
That was Rox.